Fishermen hold the key to solving Kenai’s salmon crisis

Fishermen use a set-beach seine net in Upper Cook Inlet on July 23, 2024. (Photo provided by Brian Gabriel)

Last summer, a quiet revolution unfolded on the shores of the Kenai Peninsula. A group of setnet fishermen — barred and facing economic ruin from their traditional fishery to protect dwindling king salmon — stepped into a new role: scientific collaborators. Testing set-beach seines as an alternative to gillnets, they proved something remarkable. Not only did they catch abundant sockeye; but, without exception, every king salmon encountered swam away unharmed.  

This wasn’t just conservation — it was partnership. These fishermen didn’t just follow protocols; they refined them in real time, applying generations of knowledge about tides, fish behavior, and gear mechanics. The results? A resounding proof of concept that protecting kings and harvesting sockeye need not be mutually exclusive.  

Yet today, this breakthrough risks becoming a footnote. The Alaska Board of Fisheries insists more data is needed before expanding the program — a cautious stance that ignores both the urgency of the crisis and the ingenuity at hand. Here’s what they’re missing: This experiment isn’t just about science. It’s about survival — for fish and fishermen alike. 

Two tests, one solution

The set-beach seine trials face twin imperatives:  

1. Biological success – does it spare kings? Early data: emphatically yes.  
2. Economic viability – can fishermen earn a living doing it? Unknown — to be determined.  

This second question is where bureaucracy fails. The options being considered by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game for the continued experiments treat economic outcomes as an afterthought, as if conservation can succeed without buy-in from those who work the water. Setnet families have already sacrificed their fishery for kings. Now they’re being financially pressed even more as they strive to build its replacement. The board recently failed to take prudent action. Despite conclusive data, it failed to adopt a viable regulation, asked that more data be collected, and yet refused, when asked by fishermen, to provide any enabling guidelines to the Department of Fish and Game regarding how to proceed to gather that data.  The confusion created by the board has left the department in a delicate predicament: stating it can issue permits but must restrict, or even prohibit  the sale of fish — which flies in the face of common sense, not to mention, elementary economics! 

A ready workforce, a wasting opportunity

The solution is staring us in the face. Work with the fishermen who have brought this concept to the table. Implement their creative solutions to expand the study and allow the sale of fish sufficient to recover the expenses of doing the hard work of continuing the set-beach seine study. Six to eight permit holders working in groups for the next two seasons could definitively:   

• increase by many times the data on live king release success and  survival;  
• pioneer efficiency tweaks only fishers would spot; and  
• document real-world methods to use, problems to solve, costs and profits — the make-or-break metrics. 

Without this, we’re conducting half an experiment. If the economics don’t work, this is just academic theater. We’ve got the skills to make it viable. But for that to happen, we would have to be given the chance.  

The clock is ticking

Every summer without action deepens two crises:  

• ecological – kings continue to decline while a proven alternative gathers dust and  
• human – fishing families sell permits, leave the industry and take their irreplaceable knowledge with them.  

Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang could:  

1. Issue six to eight experimental set-beach seine permits to organized fishermen groups. Action would have to be taken now; there is little time left for the fishermen to prepare for this vital work this season. 
2. Allow the commercial sale of sockeye catch by the fishermen to pay for the cost of doing the work and demonstrate the true viability for the future.  
3. Formalize co-management, embedding fisher expertise in study design.  

This isn’t about relaxing conservation — it’s about accelerating it with the people who matter most. The kings need allies. The fishermen are ready. All they need is permission to get back to work.  

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